Out in print

The Kind of Girl I Am
Julia Watts
Spinster's Ink

The coal miner's daughter grows up to run the best little whorehouse in Kentucky in this engrossing fictional biography. Born in a mining town in the Depression, our heroine - the ironically named Vestal Jenkins - is destined for, if not greatness, then at least interesting times. Marked by ambition as much by her beauty, she yearns to escape her dreary life. She soon exercises every one of the limited options for women, trying to be a missionary, a homemaker, a shopgirl and a prostitute, before going into business for herself and starting a brothel. Once she's finally achieved something like independence, she's free to discover that sex with women is a lot more fulfilling than sex with men. Alas, in the 1960s an interracial lesbian relationship is not met too kindly even in the sexual underworld, and Vestal's most important relationship is ultimately with herself. Watts's straight-ahead prose is unremarkable; she neither impresses with a turn of phrase, nor gradually charms with the rhythm of her words. But you don't need to be a master stylist to sell a yarn this interesting, especially when it also serves as a reflection of evolving ideas about sex and gender roles. And the characterization of the complex Vestal is superb; she seems understandable and sympathetic, yet a little mysterious and infuriating. At times her voice is so strong, and the sense that she's telling us flattering half-truths is so clear, that it's a shock to recall that this is fiction and not an autobiography.

Every Frat Boy Wants It
Todd Gregory
Kensington Press

As a closeted queer teen with a cherished, shoplifted porn mag, I felt I knew exactly what Iggy Pop meant when he sang, "I wish life could be Swedish magazines." But nowadays, with porn so readily available online, a gayboi is more likely to sing "I wish life could be 20 hours of Bel Ami" - which is pretty much what's on offer in this snappy book that reads like the novelization of a stroke video. College freshman Jeff Morgan is a gorgeous all-American type whose only problem is that he can't get his new best friend, and pledge brother, to give up the rosebud. I'm guessing that Gregory's knowledge of fraternities comes from a certain type of movie, the kind where jocks have highlights and call each other "honey," where pledges get hard-ons when they're paddled, and where the stern pledgemaster is a power bottom. In no time little Jeffy (who's not so little, natch) has fallen in love, screwed half his brothers, and made a porn video. Sounds like typical freshman experience to me! Okay, more like the typical Freshman experience. Although the book has a bit of an identity crisis - it's far too silly to work as a straight novel, yet spends a lot of time on Jeff's emotional journey to manhood or whatever - Gregory mostly doesn't make the mistake of taking himself too seriously. With a fleet pace and plenty of hot sex scenes to spice things up, this book is disposable but trashy fun.